March 11 2021
Google Analytics 4 and What It Means for You
In October 2020, Google released Google Analytics 4, commonly referred to as GA4, out of Beta (you can read the official announcement here) with the goal of creating a better version of Google Analytics that gives marketers insights into both Application and Website data in one comprehensive platform.
Until these features are fully fleshed out, Google still recommends setting up both the Google Analytics “Universal” version (the reports we have all grown to know and love) and the new GA4 version and running them in tandem.
Takeaway: As a TopSpot Client, your current version of Google Analytics, also known as Universal Analytics, will remain running once GA4 has been installed on your website. They will continue to run in tandem and you will not lose any data.
In addition to following Google’s recommendations, there are other reasons to continue utilizing the Universal version of Google Analytics, primarily based on some of the limitations with the new version.
Current Google Analytics 4 Limitations:
- Historical data is not carried over to the new setup. Meaning any year-over-year comparisons or historical trends you’d like to view will only be accessible through your existing Google Analytics data until GA4 has been installed for a longer amount of time.
- Advanced filtering capabilities are limited and referral exclusions (which are required for Cross-Domain Tracking) do not exist.
- Multiple profile views, which are commonly used to allow testing without disrupting data or for companies with multiple domains or language sites, do not exist.
- Numerous reports, including Google Search Console, Internal Site Search, Content Grouping are not available or exist at a limited capacity.
- There isn’t any way to share reports.
- Google Optimize does not yet have a connection or integration available and there are no Dynamic Remarketing options built out.
With these current limitations in mind, the goal is that eventually, GA4 will become the main source of truth for your website data. Moving forward, Google will be focusing any new feature developments and resources on the new platform, so we expect many new and exciting upgrades to come from GA4 down the line. In the meantime, dual tagging with both Universal and GA4 will allow us to start understanding, comparing and evolving how the data will be used moving forward.
Takeaway: While your current version of Google Analytics will continue to be supported through online documentation, any efforts on new analytics features will be for GA4.
Along with a sleek new interface, GA4 has some helpful new reports and features already and they are being continuously expanded as Google upgrades the tool. These include granular user data controls for enhanced privacy, a more in-depth Google Ads integration, and codeless event tracking (TopSpot utilizes a custom approach for tracking events).
GA4 Reporting Features We Are Looking Forward To Utilizing:
Another feature we are excited about is the AI-powered insights and predictions which can automatically alert to any data trends such as surging demand for a product (shown in the image gallery above). Additionally, GA4 will be prioritizing a cookie-less approach which will benefit a future with more cookie blocking enabled.
Understanding the new tool will take time, as Google Analytics Universal and Google Analytics 4 each analyze data in different ways. For instance, Google Analytics Universal is more session-based, where all users have sessions and each session has various hits attributed (events, page views). In GA4, the data is focused on events only and there are not traditional session data.
What Are the Next Steps?
At TopSpot, our Analytics Team has been working hard to finalize a Google Analytics Implementation Plan and are currently live testing to ensure our strategy is ready for a mass roll-out to our Client base. This update will take time, but we expect to make headway throughout the year. Our reporting efforts will not change during this process, but we will continue to communicate with our Google Team on the progress of GA4 while also monitoring it on our end to ensure the items important to our Clients are included.
Takeaway: TopSpot’s timeline for implementation will begin in April 2021. At this time, we plan to include Analytics 4 (alongside Universal) in new tracking setups while simultaneously rolling it out for existing Clients. Any future reporting updates will depend on Google’s move to complete their API connections out of Alpha, Beta, and becoming more stable.
As a TopSpot Client, you do not need to do anything on your end and we do not anticipate this to change.